Virginia men's basketball head coach Tony Bennett Mississippi State postgame press conference.
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00:00 Your guys would kind of put aside the disappointment of not making NCAAs and embrace this opportunity.
00:07 Was that a process that happened quickly or was that a gradual thing?
00:12 I mean for everyone it's a process but we didn't deserve the right to be in the NCAA tournament.
00:18 We were talked about on the next four out or kind of in there until the last game which again I said the reward for this season wasn't an NCAA tournament
00:28 but the reward was being in the next best 32 teams selected and whatever that is 69 to 90, is my math right?
00:40 Probably not.
00:41 That's a little off.
00:42 100 or close.
00:43 That's a little off.
00:44 It's a long tough game. I usually don't have a diet Pepsi at this. It went right to my head. Sugar rush.
00:50 You know what I'm saying. That was the reward for that. And you know the ability to come out and I think how we got beat by North Carolina was challenging.
01:03 They took it to us and we didn't play well and I can't credit them but we didn't play well so I think that was tough especially as we've been playing better basketball.
01:14 So the ability to regroup and building for this year, next year, this was important.
01:20 I told them whether you win or lose this game, this to me is a statement game for us, not for anyone else.
01:27 What are we made of? What kind of fight will we have? How will we approach this?
01:33 And I said this is about us and so I thought, again we came out first half played real hard.
01:38 Those are two teams that aren't terrific shooting teams but physical teams that try to play hard and you can see the size and the scoring that they have.
01:46 And I have the utmost respect for Coach Howland because of our time going against each other at UCLA.
01:52 Again, that was just a physical game.